My ideas:
1. Be very, very selective about who you marry.
2. Pursue your career passions during your 20s.
3. Place little value on material wealth. When you die it is unlikely that people will look down at your casket at your funeral and say “boy, he sure did have alot of money in his bank account and a nice car.” We lose it all when we die, and yet the goal of most people in SoCal seems to be to accumulate more, impress their neighbors, & go for flash.